Econ 101

I've been pretty busy lately, but in my spare time I've begun to read "Free to Choose" the brilliant work by Milton and Rose Friedman. While less directly about economics than philosophy it is still a stunning work.

Big dork that I am, I have to take it in small sections because every couple of pages or so, I run across things which rock me so hard I have to spend the rest of the night thinking about the implications.

It also fills me with profound sadness - especially the sections on social security and education. If there was a way to take the entire country by the lapels, shake it and say, "Here! Read this, and next time you think you're getting something for nothing, read this again."

Friedman was right almost thirty years ago and has been given lip service since then, but no one who matters (read: the people who keep returning pandering, self-serving politicians to office) really pays attention.

Put it this way, imagine you are sitting in a burned out basement in Berlin in 1945 and you come across a book written in 1915 which accurately predicted world events and laid out a plan to avoid the disaster, but had languished unread because no one wanted to believe.

Yeah, its like that.